Host: The concept of cloud computing has become very popular in recent years. Just now, at the beginning of our program, we introduced our guest today. Mr Jiang Yongdong, the inventor of our country's cloud computing platform for energy development, management and control. I want to ask you, can you explain what a cloud computing control platform is?

Jiang: This is a relatively professional question. Now, the concepts of cloud computing and the Internet-of-things are from the IT industry. In the past, the development of the IT industry and its progress are far ahead of people's need. The two concepts have won people's approval after their invention. Why? Because after understanding these two concepts, they will think about how to apply these concepts in people's daily lives and make it beneficial for people – and enhance the popularity of IT. So cloud computing and the Internet-of-things have become a national information strategy.

Cloud computing can be simply explained in a few words. Do not comprehend cloud computing as a technical frame. Just regard it as a goal frame and target frame. The Internet-of-things is a network that connects things together, which makes possible communication between things and management through connection, allowing things to adapt to each other. Cloud computing can be taken as a calculating model, which is not a stand-alone structure. It is multiple machines working for the same client. But it doesn't require clients to build the structure. It's a kind of backstage service, like our public services in cities, including healthcare, contingency and firefighting. These public services are provided backstage. Users, our residents, can enjoy these services without knowing about fire engines. When there is a fire, they do not need to know which station it is from. They do not have to know about this. All they need is firefighters coming to extinguish the fire. When an emergency happens, the ambulance will arrive immediately, but they do not need to know which hospital it is from. We solve the users' problems. Users can experience it. That's enough. So cloud computing is an IT service framework applied in the society, or you could say, techniques used on a large scale.

Host: My understanding of cloud computing is like putting a city in such a circle and integrating all the functions for unified allocation to maximize the use of resources and minimize the consumption of resources. This is the concept. It will be realized through a type of software. Is there such a kind of software？

Jiang: Yes, there is such software running backstage. But the results will be presented on a page to the users. All you need is to be on the page which is in no way different from the traditional model. To explain it in technical terms, it is using multiple servers backstage to deal with a single problem of the user and at the same time, showing the results to the user. Users will not feel anything running; they will only get the results. The concept of energy management and control has two meanings: One is the collective management of energy, and the other is collective control of energy. There are two layers of meaning. Why do we talk about energy management? Now, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and local governments are promoting centralized collection of energy in cities. We can see all the data after collection. Based on the data, we can get very accurate judgment and analysis. What measures should be taken to realize energy-saving and lower emissions. Or what equipment should save energy and cut emissions? This can be called the "Preece Effect". Just like what is mentioned in The Washington Post, a Preece car is– the driver can see the energy consumption at some certain point, so the driver can adjust his driving habits and behaviors according to the energy consumption. As a result, the instant energy consumption of the car will decrease accordingly. This is called the "Preece Effect". Now, centralized management of energy means we will make efforts to gather statistics of all energy used in the city and analyze it to find out which place consumes the most energy and find specific measures. The key point is where we should see the most detailed data. We want to make analyses on every end of energy use to understand the amount of energy consumption and energy consuming tendencies – and also the range of adjustment. Then we can control it accordingly, to reduce energy emissions in an allowed range. This is what cloud computing wants to achieve. This can only be achieved by cloud computing and the Internet-of-things. In the past, it could not be made. This is what we are doing. Just now, we mentioned controlling. The same problem is how to control it. One kind is automation, which is to combine automation and human control to achieve people's will through automated measures. If we want to analyze and control every end, we need to know the equipment's specific location, the only location. Otherwise you cannot find the equipment. The Internet-of-things will solve this problem. Everything will have its own IP. Every energy consuming entity will submit the data to the management center. The center can see all the ends and send orders to certain equipment to achieve a closed circulation. Then we can get from supervising to control to implementation. Then it can achieve the specific target of saving energy and cutting emission. And when the energy control of the whole city is achieved, we can reach the target of low-carbon development for our whole society.

Host: I have another question. You just said the cloud computing control platform is a relatively new concept in China. Are there similar techniques already in use in other countries? Or are there any relatively mature experiences?

Jiang: In these areas, we are on pace with foreign countries. We are still trying to explore these concepts. The basic theory and philosophy have been solved in the sector of IT. The applications of these concepts are different. Some use it to solve energy problems; some use it to solve transportation problems, and some use it to solve reserve problems. These specific applications are all at the beginning stages around the world. So we are on pace with the rest of the world. Now, other countries have not applied these techniques to save energy, so I say I am the first one, the inventor. So I declared this an invention.

Host: Mr Jiang has just introduced the domestic application of cloud computing. Now I want to discuss more about the development of these concepts in other countries.

Jiang: Using cloud computing in energy control is a fresh application. I am the first one in China to address this kind of application and also the first in the world. But in other countries, there are also a lot of people who want to do it in this way. But what they call it and how they do it are slightly different. Their goals are the same, but the ways to achieve the goals are different. Last April, I began to promote this concept in China. The experts and industry insiders gradually got to understand this philosophy. I also have partners for international cooperation, partners from Europe and US. They also basically understood my target and philosophy. Next week I will meet a partner from the US to discuss how to apply cloud computing to energy control. So Europe and the US are also working in this direction. But there is another problem I need to explain more. Using cloud computing in energy control is a new technique, but the specific techniques and goals are not new. In the past, we used a single-machine, or traditional IT measures. Now we have agreed on the same theory and have used it for many years in society. The novel point is we changed the technical frame to the cloud computing frame to combine the experiences and techniques together and to save energy in a group of buildings other than the original single building to spread the experience of one building to the whole society. This is our goal.

Host: As we just discussed, the focus of energy-saving and emission-cutting will be the city-level building clusters. Mr Xin Xiaoguang, former deputy director at the energy-saving and emission-cutting office at the People's Bank of China, may I ask are there relevant cases overseas we can refer to when constructing a low-carbon city?

Xin: For this question, we can look back to 2003: a, "low-carbon economy" was mentioned in the Energy White Paper of the United Kingdom. In essence, a low-carbon economy is the efficient use of energy, and clean energy development, and the key is technology innovations in energy and emission reductions, renovations in industrial structures and systems, and fundamental changes in human's concepts on living and developing how humans live and develop. The idea of constructing a low-carbon city construction we are pursuing now was introduced taken from the UK.

From now on, the low-carbon city development should be take place on a main roads,, that is, to forge an objective common understanding, through our low-carbon city construction, with effortsemphasis on energy-saving and emission-cutting. Because we are aiming to build a low-carbon industrial park, or a large city, we need to consider how to make it consistent with the community and the world.

Take the waste classification as an example. It has been done very well in some foreign nations, but people in this county, even with a strong sense of involvement, have failed to makeclassify waste in the same way it into specific classification. So in the course of the area of waste elimination as such , the low-carbon target cannot be achieved.

Therefore, a change is required in terms of the industrial structure and system, and people's understanding;, then we can integrate low-carbon schemes into the big family of the world.everyday life.

Host: After discussing referring tothe waste classification, as one of the an important issues in low-carbon cities, Mr Xin, how does our nation set up an assessmenting system asto help us constructing a low-carbon city?

Xin: Low-carbon city construction is a dynamic process, so there are long-term goals and also short-term planning. To achieve low-carbon targets, we must have up-to-date managerial methods and testing measures. Managers and policy-makers should have control over some crucial segmentareas in the process.

To hit the next step target, we can apply a new generation information technology, and use a management platform based on cloud computing, linking each segment of a low-carbon cityies. HenceHence, an after-assessment system is needed for every segment in the process, to provide assessment to information to help decision-makers for to adjusting the target in the management management targets. Otherwise, we will not have an essential execution be able to realize the great targets. To conclude, the assessing ment system will have play a critical role in the management of a llow-carbon city, energy-saving, and emission-cutting.

Host: That's all for the on low-carbon city construction from our guest experts. At the end, I'll express the appreciation Thank you to the two guests for coming to the China Daily website. Thanks for coming.

Please keep watching the ‘Dialogue: Cities on the low-carbon road' produced by the China Daily website.

See you next time.